Sophokles

Reinhardt wählt seinen Blickpunkt mitten im sophokleischen Drama selbst. Er will keine philosophischen Fragen stellen, sondern betrachten, was an seelischen Lagen gegeben ist, was sich - innerlich - in diesen Tragödien ereignet. Er untersucht das Verhältnis zwischen Ich und Du, zwischen Mensch und Gott und das daraus erwachsende zwischen Mensch und Mensch.

"Es ist Reinhardt gelungen, die klassischen Gegenstände der humanistischen Verehrung, die sonst nur in der blassen und ins immer Blassere vergehenden Bildungsfeierlichkeit des Humanismus fortleben, nicht in der Vorbildlichkeit ihrer Helden, sondern in deren Menschlichkeit gegenwärtig werden zu lassen." Hans-Georg Gadamer Karl Reinhardt (1886–1958), one of the most distinguished Greek scholars of his time, was a professor of philology at the University of Frankfurt am Main from 1924 until his retirement in 1951. In his study on Sophokles, Reinhardt takes his point of view from the inside of the Sophocleian drama itself. He discusses the relation of the inner world of Sophocles’ heroes to the world in which they live and to the daimonic world of the gods. Reinhardt´s intention is not to raise philosophical questions, but rather to investigate into what is happening inside these tragedies – into, as it were, the ways of the soul in its juxtaposition between Me and You, the Self and the Other, Man and God and, ultimately, Man and Man. Reinhardt thus succeeds in saving the classic devotional objects of humanism from their customary paleness and instead rendering them colorful. He aims not at depicting Sophokles’ heroes in their canonical exemplarity, but rather to show them as contemporaries in their humanity, their frailty, pride, and sorrow.